


Wash the Dirt off your Grass-Stained Knees

by Alexa_Piper



Series: The Notebook - Unrelated Danny Phantom Oneshots from 2013 to 2019 [5]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, It was written as a gift, M/M, Pitch Pearl, This might be my only Pitch Pearl fic ever, backdated fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27210091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexa_Piper/pseuds/Alexa_Piper
Summary: Sometimes things just don't go to plan...
Relationships: Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom
Series: The Notebook - Unrelated Danny Phantom Oneshots from 2013 to 2019 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986457
Kudos: 13





	Wash the Dirt off your Grass-Stained Knees

Summer was here, but Daniel Fenton was determined not to enjoy the heat. Without an ice core, he felt hot and bothered even on cold days; now that the temperature was steadily rising, he felt like a beetle trapped in a bottle in full sunlight.

Still brooding over the separation from his ghost form a few months earlier, Danny found that this only made his foul mood blacker.

At least his suffering wasn't exacerbated by trudging through packed school corridors and stuffy classrooms anymore. He was fairly confident that he had passed the exams – separation from Phantom had provided the boy with adequate time to study – but he knew that with the damage of the first half of the year's performance, he would never get the marks required to become an astronaut.

He missed flying, if he was to be perfectly honest. Phantom took Danny out sometimes, but it wasn't the same as having the ability yourself. Danny missed a lot of things about being half ghost, and he was sure that Phantom missed a heck of a lot about being human. The ghost could no longer hide from hunters, and Danny had woken several times in the middle of the night to find Phantom sitting up in bed and panicking because he could no longer breathe.

Those panic attacks were hard for both of them – no matter how much the human tried to soothe the ghost, Phantom acted like he was dying. They would end up clutched in each other's arms, trying to stifle their sobbing before Maddie and Jack could wake up.

Danny had debated trying to re-combine with his ghost half, but their separation had provided something that he knew he could never give up; they were in love.

Leaning back against the trunk of the tree he lounged in, Danny closed his eyes and smiled as he recalled their first kiss. He had made the initial move, sitting on top of the town's clock tower in the middle of the night after flying as high as the human's body would allow. Phantom had responded with vigour, and Danny's smile turned to a grin as he thought about how _good_ his boyfriend's icy lips tasted, the electric fizz of ectoplasm popping on the mortal boy's tongue with a touch like fresh snow.

Their parents – Danny was adamant that Phantom still refer to them as such, even if only in private – had been _extremely_ hesitant to accept this relationship. They had no idea as of yet that Phantom was the ghost of their son, and both boys had agreed to wait a while before telling them. The hunters' reaction to their son's coming out and new relationship had initially been violent towards Phantom's person, but the situation had been defused fairly rapidly – the boys knew their own parents well enough to say what they wanted to hear, after all.

Danny's watch beeped to signal the hour, and he dropped from the branch to land in a crouch. He was going to meet Phantom in five minutes by this tree – _their_ tree – and the human didn't want to be startled into falling off his branch again.

As he landed, the human mentally cursed as he realised that the clearing that this tree helped form the border of wasn't empty.

Dash was performing some sort of martial arts pattern in the middle of the clear space, and Danny gulped as the larger boy's face twisted into a sneer. "Spying on me, Fentoenail?" the jock sneered, abandoning his pattern and stalking towards the scrawny boy. Danny backpedalled, heart fluttering as his back hit the broad trunk of their tree. He briefly debated running or climbing, but dismissed those alternative routes – if he tried to avoid it, Dash would just hurt him more.

The bully had taken every opportunity he could since school had finished two weeks ago to make Fenton suffer. Everyone supposed that this was because the jock's prestige at football hadn't been enough to save his neck this time – no amount of extra credit could make up for flunking every exam except gym. Summer school wasn't an option either, since the jock refused to give up his future football scholarship – which required mandatory attendance to a particular summer workshop for two years prior to attending the college. The fact that the entire town was aware of Dash's situation only served to make the teen's mood worse.

Dash Baxter was going to repeat their senior year, and had already been kicked out of his circle of 'friends'. As soon as word got out that he would be repeating, Paulina had turned up her nose and sauntered away from the boy. That was all it had taken for the rest of the group to follow her, leaving Dash standing completely alone. Kwan still talked to him, but only when the others weren't around. Thus, in addition to the humiliation he suffered from thanks to his dismal academic performance, Dash also found himself near-crippled with loneliness.

While everyone else celebrated their freedom and whiled away the final week until results were released, Dash took it out on the only person that he could.

"I wasn't spying, I swear!" the boy insisted. "I'm waiting to meet someone here – I didn't know you even knew about this spot!"

"Well, this is _my_ spot," the bully growled, pressing his forearm against Danny's throat in a position that both restricted the boy's airway and trapped him against the tree.

Danny couldn't help the glare that spread across his face. "It doesn't… belong… to anyone… so get… off me," he choked, moving to slam cupped hands over Dash's ears.

The jock managed to block the attack, snarling as Danny dropped to the ground. "Oooh, you're gunna get it now."

Danny shrugged, massaging his throat. "Face it, Dash – I'm not gunna be around at school for you to beat up next year. You have no audience here. What's the point in hurting me? I've never done anything to you."

The bully responded by kicking his victim in the chest as hard as possible. Danny screamed involuntarily at the sickening snap of his ribs, and Dash smirked. "Maybe I do it for myself, you know? I'm not really gunna get anywhere in life, unless I scare away the competition."

Danny clutched at his torso, his breaths fast and shallow. His mind was telling him to shut up and stop provoking the guy, but years of ignoring the voice as a halfa had him disregarding this metal warning in a heartbeat. "You're deluded," he wheezed. "The world doesn't work like that. Brains over brawn, and all."

"And where're your brains beatin' my brawn?"

Danny squeezed his eyes shut, unable to do the same with his damned mouth. "I'm not the one repeating senior year."

The second kick was as hard as the first, and in exactly the same spot. Danny held in his cry as best he could, praying for Phantom to _hurry up._

A familiar tingle down his spine – a mere shadow of his ghost sense – had the victim smiling. He opened his eyes in the hope of finding Phantom hovering over Dash's shoulder, and froze – floating there and grinning like a maniac, Skulker aimed a cannon at the boys. "Oi, human! Nobody hurts the Fenton child except me!"

Danny pulled on Dash's leg as the jock screamed in horror, tugging the larger boy to the ground just as the cannon's ectoblast scorched a black mark into the tree's surface. _Not a strong enough blast to be fatal on the first hit,_ the human observed.

Skulker adjusted his aim, and Danny threw himself over the bully, using his own body as a shield. The pain that tore through his chest at the motion rendered Danny incapable of speech, and he lay limply over his tormentor, gasping for air.

Skulker fired, and Danny felt like he was dying as the blast burned away the flesh covering his lower back. Before the ghost could charge another blast, Phantom appeared in the clearing in a blur of black and white, hands charged with green and murder shining in emerald eyes.

He didn't even bother with threats – Phantom sucked Skulker into the thermos before teleporting to his human's side. "How badly did he hurt you?!"

The human coughed, crying out at the pain it caused. "I'll live," he assured his boyfriend. "I'd be fine… but Dash here had already… beaten me up pretty bad… and I had to stop Skulker… from hurting him…"

Phantom gathered Danny into his arms, moving the human to rest against the tree. "Don't hurt Dash," the mortal gasped.

Phantom ignored him, moving to stand in front of the still-cowering jock. "Get up," the ghost demanded in a tight voice.

Dash peeked out from between his fingers and leapt to his feet in a flash, the terror on his face melting into glee. "Phantom, you came to rescue-ack!"

Phantom pinned the boy to the tree in a similar manner to how Dash had initially restrained Danny. "I should kill you," the ghost hissed, "for hurting Danny like that."

"H-he started it!"

" _You and I both know that that isn't true!_ " Phantom roared, his aura flaring white. He dropped the boy to the ground, turning away. "If you _ever_ touch him again, I'll make sure that you'll be unable to father children. Now, get out of my sight."

Danny supposed that he had never seen Dash run so fast, not even on the football field.

"Thanks for not hurting him," he rasped as Phantom knelt beside him. "You can deal with Skulker however you want."

The ghost nodded, keeping his gaze downcast. "I'm sorry I wasn't here," he whispered, clenching his trembling fingers into fists. "I-I'm so sorry."

Danny painfully reached towards the ghost as Phantom began to shake violently. "It's okay," he breathed, biting back a cry as Phantom gently hugged him. The spectre pulled away at the pained sound, worry creasing his brow. "Danny –" the rest of his sentence was swallowed by the human's mouth.

Danny kissed his other half in earnest, pressing hard against those electric lips. Phantom responded with the same amount of vigour, moulding his mouth perfectly against the human's own.

When they broke apart, the ghost burst into tears. "D-Danny…"

"Shhh," the human soothed, wiping away a glowing ectoplasmic tear with the pad of his thumb. "Let's get me to the hospital, hm?"

Phantom nodded, but somewhere between gathering Danny into his arms and actually taking flight, the ghost ended up sitting on the ground. He cradled Danny tenderly, sobbing into his inky hair as the human whispered words of comfort.

They stayed like that until the sun disappeared behind the trees – it took that long for Phantom to stop shaking enough to fly.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as a gift back in 2013. Again, this site is an archive, so I felt like this should be crossposted on here as I transfer my old works over from tumblr and ff. Thanks for reading!


End file.
